The gentleman looking at the camera is Bill Williams. The car, at the 1949 Brighton International Speed Trials, is the final form of the
single-seater Williams built, then developed over a number of years, for Ken Jarvis. Tragically, the latter was killed in it at the Luton Hoo hillclimb later in 1949. (Photo J V Bowles.)

Cambridge True

To today’s motoring enthusiast, beset by legislation and punitive taxation, the ‘mystic’ art of the special builder must seem veiled in the all-enveloping mists of time. Yet once, building your own car for road or competition use was commonplace amongst the impoverished seeker of mobility and fun.‘It is always a pleasure to own something individual to yourself, something you personally have created . It may be a painting or other work of art, or perhaps if you are a clever craftsman, something in wood or metal. Fortunately you do not have to be a highly skilled motor engineer to build your own 750cc sports car’,is how an instruction booklet published by the Cambridge Engineering Works immediately post-War introduces its subject. The ‘750cc’ they have in mind is, of course, the ubiquitous Austin Seven.‘Ever since its introduction in 1922’, the pamphlet continues, ‘the Austin Seven has proved itself to be a solid, reliable vehicle in spite of its extreme simplicity. It is this rugged reliability coupled with the uncomplicated nature of the design which has made the car the delight of many special builders. Years ago we foresaw how amateur keenness would be unable to resist the temptation to develop where Austin left off.’ Arguably, Cambridge Engineering was the doyen of the ‘commercial’ Austin Seven Special constructors. Now, for the first time the always confusing, sometimes obscure, story of Leslie Mark (Bill) Williams and Cambridge has been painstakingly researched and engagingly recorded by Specials buff and custodian of several of the cars, Stuart Ulph. Williams was born in Southwark, south London, on March 4, 1903. Remarkably, little is known of his early life. He may have served in the Royal Navy sometime between the 1920s and early 1930s. He married, fathered one daughter and then, aound the end of this period was widowed. He re-married about 1945. Neither is it clear when he established Auto Conversions – the progenitor of Cambridge – on Belton Road, Willesden, well to the north of his birthplace in Britain’s capital. What clues we have suggest 1934. This is when, in the March, Williams wrote to Light Car magazine inviting those interested in converting Austin Sevens to sports specification to exchange ideas with him. In December of that year the same magazine published an article by Williams on ‘underslinging (i.e. lowering) an Austin Seven’. This was probably inspired, in part, by the Austin Motor Company’s negative response, in 1931, to a request from fellow enthusiast Richard Shuttleworth, and others, for the firm to retail their in-house lowered front suspension components. Also, by the revelation, through the correspondence columns of Light Car, of the existence of a plethora of ‘conversion crazed’ potential customers. Ulph’s interpretation, undoubtedly correct, is that Williams saw a worthwhile business opportunity.Cart shed

Belton Road seems to have comprised ‘unglamorous’ accommodation in a converted stable or cart shed of about 500 square feet with no machine tools other than drill presses. Activity, by Williams working alone, was on three planes. The occasional building of competition cars for himself or individual clients; the rebuilding or improvement of sporting Austins for his customers; and the sale of spare parts, tuning accessories and what he described as J2 Type bodies (presumably after the MG model that they closely resembled). Additionally there was some dealing in interesting sports Austin Sevens. About 1941 Auto Conversions moved to 151 Cambridge Road, Kew Greeen, and, as the literature helpfully puts it (Behind Coach and Horses). The premises were not much more ‘glamorous’. A string of lock-up garages in an alley described by one client as ‘squalid’ and ‘scruffy’. But there was now a heat treatment ‘plant’ in the form of a New World make gas cooker, and a forge and press. It is difficult to determine just how many J2 Type Cambridge Specials were built – the ‘standard’ cars that incorporated all, or a selection of, the tuning ‘goodies’ Williams offered and constructed according to the instructions he published. Perhaps as many as between 500 and 550. Yet of greater interest to the historian is the one-offs for which Williams was either directly responsible or involved with. What we might loosely describe as the prototype Cambridges is two cars Williams built around the time of the Light Car correspondence in 1934. The first was originally a late 1928 ‘Seven’, rebodied in fabric covered wood and incorporating some major body parts from a Gordon England ‘Cup’ model. It had twin carburetters then dummy knock-off hubs and racing style fuel filler to ‘improve the appearance’. The two-seater ultra-low body was described as ‘Hornet type’ (presumably after the vaguely similar Wolseley). Interestingly no allusion was made to the J2 MG. Williams advertised the car for sale at £32 in March 1934, when he was encouraging Light Car readers to indulge in similar exploits. The second car has a much stronger claim to being the true J2 Type prototype. The lines were similar to the first but the body was of steel panelling over ash and oak. Dummy ‘knock-offs’ continued but there was now a slab fuel tank that very neatly carried the spare wheel. The next special ‘Special’ opens an episode of motoring history that could, in itself, warrant an article. The machine, built around 1937, was a two-seater racer for Peter Almack who, from premises in London’s Hampstead, and at Esher in Surrey, was in the enterprising business of hiring competitive cars to aspiring racing drivers. Williams’s design, that centred around a 1928 Gordon England Brooklands model, provided an underpan for the aluminium body plus a pointed tail and raked radiator shell. The front track was four inches wider than standard and the engine highly developed to include a Laystall crankshaft , special camshaft, high compression cylinder head and Cozette supercharger. Almack campaigned the car in short handicap races but sold it back to Williams after little more than a year when his business closed. It then passed to the enthusiastic amateur driver, Ken Jarvis.Widened front axleSpecial number four was another 1937 build but this time a single seater vaguely resembling Austin’s own overhead camshaft racers. Because Williams had no welding facilities the aluminium body was hand-beaten from a single sheet with a faired headrest riveted to the tail. The engine was essentially a supercharged Austin ‘Ulster’ unit. This example had many adventures in the hands of its owner, R. R. Willis and Williams himself, including being ‘loaned’ to Longbridge to complete a three car team for a Shelsley Walsh hillclimb in 1938 after Kay Petre’s Works car had been wrecked at Brooklands. After a succession of owners it still exists and is active in competition. The next car, built in late 1938 or early 1939, was for Williams own use and intended to look like the contemporary 1.5 litre Maserati racer. Despite its widened front axle, Austin ‘Ulster’ engine with removable Cozette supercharger and carburetion by Arnott, this version was disappointing on the tracks. Williams sold it in 1944 and subsequently it was extensively modified by later owners. Constructed around the same time was an ill-starred single-seater for Ken Jarvis. After some teething problems it performed well in sprints and hillclimbs. In 1944 this car acquired an ex-Works competition engine with a ‘25 stud’ cylinder head . Over the winter of 1948-49 it was rebodied but, tragically, killed Jarvis at the Luton Hoo hillclimb of October 8, 1949. Williams did not build another sprinter until 1952 when he was firmly established at 151 Cambridge Road. This car was derived from the pre-War Hartwell Special that had been constructed by an Oxford garage for George Hartwell, the son of the proprietor. It carried the highly memorable registration mark JO 66. By mid-1935 the Hartwell had entered the stable of Ken Jarvis and two years later carried a Cambridge J2 Type body. Post-War it adopted an inclined radiator, pointed tail and undershield and the ’25-stud Works motor’ from Jarvis’s crashed car plus other embellishments. Williams raced JO 66 extremely successfully from 1952 until 1956. An example of just how potent it was is the constructor’s time in the up to 1100cc class at the Tarrant Rushton sprint early in the duo’s career – 0.02 seconds faster than the winner of the three litre saloon category in an Aston Martin DB2! When Williams disposed of ‘JO’ it was converted to independent front suspension and given an 1100cc Ford engine. However, most of the original ingredients survive. JO 66 was one of at least three near-identical cars. VB 7571 was bought by squadron leader Harold Ironside after he had seen it in partially built form. It served the flyer well in competition, often against Williams. It is one of the cars now cared for by Stuart Ulph. A third sister, GF 2535, was originally bought and briefly owned by Alistair Park and later campaigned by David Boorer. It disappeared when Boorer sold it in the early 1960s. Williams last special, very straightforwardly designated LMW was an extremely modernistic design that the uninitiated may attribute to Lotus. The venerable ’25-stud’ engine was used in a lightweight independently sprung tubular frame. There was rack and pinion steering, a cross-flow radiator incorporating an oil cooler and supercharging by a Centric 160 instrument. Anachronistically transmission was through an Austin Nippy gearbox to a 1931 Austin Seven differential.Beautifully crafted

The beautifully crafted coupé body was of aluminium and the car first registered on December 21, 1957. Although intended for fast touring and/or a retirement present to himself, Williams raced it at Stapleford hillclimb in 1958. It was sold in 1959 and without its famous engine , survives in sound order with Stuart Ulph. Control of Cambridge Engineering passed to Jack Brown, Williams’s long-term ‘right-hand-man’, and Esher accountant, Derek Thomas in 1958. New products like independent front suspension for the Austin Seven and a finned alloy cylinder head were launched in 1959. In early 1962 Cambridge took over the Austin Seven tuning components of Speedex when that company closed. Whether or not Williams would have approved is questionable as he was disparaging about the performance enhancing wares of others. ‘We are not interested in merely selling parts and encouraging an enthusiast to carry on in the knowledge that due to limited means he will at some stage have to give up the job and probably lose most of the money spent by having to sell an “uncompleted Special”.‘As readers will have seen in the advertising columns there are far too many of these unfortunate enthusiasts who have been let down by the specialist firms.'Never make use of badly worn or shoddily made parts. They may appear to save a little money but in the long run are invariably proved a false economy and in some cases may be highly dangerous.’ All that said, by 1962 the golden age of Special building was on the wane, especially regarding Austin Sevens. The scrap-yards were full of Ford Eights and Tens with their more robust engines and chassis that, even as standard, were braked to an extent that was well up to the most highly developed performance. Cambridge Engineering ceased trading in 1967 with a bargain clearance sale so disappointing that the initial announcement was followed by a second advertisement. ‘Many parts remain and will be scrapped if not sold shortly’.Long before, Williams had moved to Marlow in Buckinghamshire. He later settled in Malta where he died on March 20, 1964. His seminal book, Austin Seven Specials Building Maintenance and Tuning had been published by Foulis in 1958.Quite apart from the detailed analysis of the one-offs that inspired the ‘regular’ cars and test-bedded accessories, Stuart Ulph’s book provides an illuminating and invaluable insight to an era when Special building was vogue. Comprehensive appendices reveal the tone and attitude of the British motor trade and industry long before the days of impersonal, often meaningless, computer-speak.We have those masters of race preparation, Thomson & Taylor, writing a customer: ‘We have gone into the job pretty thoroughly and found the engine in pretty rotten shape!’ And the Austin Motor Company preferring ‘to be excused from quoting’ on the supply of lowered suspension. Other sections chirpily capture the relaxed, joie de vivre of amateur racing when it was affordable for a much wider section of the population than today. But perhaps the most interesting of all the peripherals is the impression gained, though never directly voiced, of Williams’s own character.Different picture

Those who were familiar with Cambridge Engineering’s ‘works’ both in Willesden and at Kew paint a very different picture from that conveyed by the proprietor himself in what he wrote (or had written for him, we believe by a freelance advertizing man called Cyril Millichamp). As we have seen ‘scruffy’ and ‘squalid’ were adjectives used to describe the accommodation combined with the impression: ‘he (Williams) seemed to be a little secretive as regards the extent of his premises and what was hidden away in them’. Yet Rebuild Your Austin Seven The Cambridge Way evokes, if not a slick marketing approach, one that’s very sophisticated, even visionary. The reader learns the company has had the pleasure of assisting ‘many thousands of amateurs who have successfully built high performance and attractive looking sports cars’.A full technical advice service is said to be on offer, availed by clients from all over the British Isles. Customer loyalty rates high, with projects being constructed entirely from Cambridge components drawn from the largest stock of such parts in the United Kingdom. There is even tailored financing spread over the length of the build, the risks being born in-house. Was it blague? Probably.Certainly Williams’s competitors were not as impressed with him as he was with himself and were a small coterie of elite customers. A fairly acerbic exchange began in the correspondence columns of the 750 Motor Club Bulletin in January 1952. Club chairman, ‘Holly’ Birkett, had announced that Colin Chapman with his Lotus (Austin Seven-based, of course) had offered to abstain from competition. This was in response to committee lamentations that Lotus’s presence was discouraging race participation, In a letter the English of which is dubious and rather confirms the source of the elegant prose in his literature, Williams as ‘champion of the amateur’ suggests a handicap system. Clearly this was to disadvantage Chapman with his: ‘able assistants and workshop’, not to mention cash. Several people defended Chapman on the basis he had: ‘the brains to find the horses – more horses than anyone else has found so far’, and also suggested any reluctance to compete in 750 formula events arose from the ‘fear of being beaten by Works entries from Kew’. But perhaps it was Jack French, himself a highly acclaimed Austin Seven Special builder and adaptor of Longbridge parts (most memorable quote – ‘add lightness’) who encapsulated the fraternity’s true view of Williams. French’s letter to the April Bulletin interprets Williams’s ‘diatribe’ (on handicapping) as a ‘complaint that Lotus goes far too well for any normal Cambridge inspired car to catch it’. He goes on: ‘I am intrigued to read that Reader Williams (Williams may not have been a paid-up club member) is the “champion of the amateur” and am prompted to say a) who said so and b) on what grounds?... ... ‘Reader Williams, whom I have known since 1936, is a motor trader who has given much advice and sold many parts – some incidentally, emanating from Farley’s End (French’s premises at Elmore in Gloucestershire) – to would-be motor racers; he also nursed the Ken Jarvis car. And that’s about all.’French goes on to make some much more positive points about the situation and offer some constructive help to Special builders. Predictably, Williams’s response was less than amiable and with it, John Moon, editor of the Bulletin, very wisely closed the correspondence! Stuart Ulph’s superb treatise on Williams, his times, business and his cars, entitled Would Suit Enthusiast L M Williams and his Austin Seven Specials, is published by, and available from, the Pre-War Austin Seven Club at £16.95 UK postage and packing included. A limited edition hard back can be obtained direct from the author (stuart@prudence.demon.co.uk) at £40.60, all in, while stock lasts.

This summary was written by Martyn.

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One of at least three Cambridge Specials built around 1952. They closely followed the styling of a car Williams had himself successfully campaigned. That car was derived from the pre-War Hartwell Special and had the potent engine from Jarvis’s crashed car. It was memorably registered JO 66. GF 2535 is seen at Silverstone. (Photo John Cowley)